Invidia
Reflections of the Shattered Glass

March 2004
Released: 2003, Independent
Rating: 3.0/5
Reviewer: Waspman

Formed in 2000 under the guise of A Madman’s Desire, Invidia was born as a death/thrash metal band. After numerous member changes and style shifts, the band finally settled on their current lineup fairly recently, in 2003. So really, Invidia is a very young band despite being “together” for three years. The band is young in another sense too, as the oldest member of the band was born in 1983! Man that’s depressing. I think I’m going to take some marks off just because they make me feel old. OK, maybe not. Anyway, to the music!

The band plays a fairly thrashy brand of melodic death metal with the occasional hint of black metal. You can definitely hear the guys’ influences in the music, ranging from Vader to Dimension Zero to some crunchy old-school Carcass bits. Given the band’s relatively young age the music is extremely well constructed and the playing is very tight. Each song is a searing attack on the ears, especially the vicious thrash parts of “Keeping the Faith…”. If you’re not careful you’ll find yourself in mid-headbang before you know it. Aside from the intro and the under three minute “Rise of the Unborn”, the songs are all longer than five minutes, giving the band plenty of time to show what they can do with numerous time changes, riffs, and moods. As I said, these songs are well done.

The problem is that the songs often blend into each other and I found myself unable to distinguish between them at times. Most of the songs contain some variation of a thrash part, a mid-paced death part, and a more atmospheric part. The guys have obviously found a formula that works for them but it needs to be injected with some variation. All in all though, this is a great start for the band, giving them a powerful cornerstone to build on.